An Artist's Quest for "Soul" in a Chaotic World—by InnerSpirit

This is my InnerSpirit blog page...a page of reflection...inquiry...
and artistic questions about myself, my life, and the world around me. A place for my own personal contemplation of my emotions, my actions, my art, my spiritual journey and how they all intertwine and influence each other. I hope that you check it out, think a little about your life and the many creative things that you might be engaged in...how do those fit into your life and impact the various aspects of your own life? Let's reflect together!

Sunday, November 6, 2011

AEDM 2011-Creativity Comes Around Again

Behind Already In The Posting
Once again this year I am participating in Art Every Day Month 2011 created and ran each year by Leah Piken Kolidas. Well, as usual, I am always trying to get lots of different things done. My mind is always flowing with many projects and thoughts. Though my projects may seem haphazard, there is usually some coherence or common thread between them all so I have learned to just go with the flow and embrace creativity however it is manifested. It seems that the only time that I really write in this blog is during AEDM. I keep saying that I am going to get better and here we are again. Posting some I guess is better than none...though that doesn't really get many followers. 

I decided this year for AEDM that I would incorporate some creative work that I need to get done for my website into part of the daily creative sessions. This way, it will actually give me the motivation to get something moving forward in that department. It has sat idle WAY too long! So...I started out this month with a sporadic array of creative endeavors, which, other than the website agenda, they have been pretty unplanned. A small correction to that statement, the tattoo designs have been rolling around in my head for some time, and I had already decided on the Chinese writing symbol for "God" and the Reiki symbol for inside of the circles.

© Innerspirit/Diane M. McKnight
The Sporadic Way That My Creativity Flows
Day One: I started this painting at a friend's studio during a little "art date" that we had planned. I was inspired by some of the various shapes of metal pieces that she had down in her studio in a box. I used them as stencils and painted around them. It was "freeing" to be in someone else's studio and using their art supplies. We decided that night that drinking wine and painting just naturally flow together. I am having her over to my studio next time so she can experience the same feelings of freedom. I will work some more on this one later in the month I hope.

Day Two: I worked on completing two tattoo designs. I had already downloaded the two symbols I wanted to use. The one in the top circle is the Chinese Lettering for "GOD" and the one below is the Reiki symbol Cho Ku Ray "The Power Symbol", which also means "God and man coming together". I added the gradated circle behind the symbols in InkPad, an iPad app that is very similar to Adobe Illustrator. I really liked the way that they turned out, so I emailed them to my tattoo artist for a later appointment.

Day Three: I reviewed my website package pricing and the additions and features that have made to the site since I last had looked into using this company as my way to build my page. I also reviewed all the website samples again, since a lot of them were new and used the new features that are now available to members. They have made some very useful and exciting additions and I was excited that they have included some promotions such as three free months if you sign up for a year of monthly billing or one whole year FREE if you pay for a whole year in advance. I thought that I could not go wrong with that, so I plunged in and started the two week free trial. This allows you to start building your website and if you still like what is happening and how easy it is to work with, you just sign up and all of your work is kept and you have not lost anything. I am so excited to actually be STARTING this project!


© Innerspirit/Diane M. McKnight
© Innerspirit/Diane M. McKnight
Day Four: I revisited a project I started several months ago where I created a few variations on my iPad of designs from a photograph that I took of one of the flowers in my garden. I had still not been extremely happy with the variations that I did before, so I took them even further and I was happy with how these two turned out. I enjoyed playing with all the textures and colors in these apps. I will be going back into these with my colored pencil app on the iPad or iPhone and do some additions to them to pull out some of the shapes at a later date. Maybe even this month.

Day Five: I was back at my website deign. Unfortunately, I am not able to post this creative endeavor in progress, but I will be sure to let everyone know how it turns out and the website link will be posted on my fb page, my blog and I will also twitter it. Today I worked on adding my logo and some basic navigation tabs that I want to have on it. Such as workshops, private sessions, fine art, blog, books/resources, bio/about me, contact info, mailing list, purchases, etc. I mapped out the skeleton framework that I would like to start with and see if that works. I can change and customize my templates at any time if it doesn't work out.

© Innerspirit/Diane M. McKnight

© Innerspirit/Diane M. McKnight

© Innerspirit/Diane M. McKnight

Day Six: I created an abstract design in an iPad app that I really like, and then pulled it into Grungetastic iPad app and created the three design variations above that I really think are fun. I like the orange and blue design as it is, but I might pull the other two into another app and do some work with them just to see where it goes.

Wow, this was a very long blog post, but I was playing catch up. The work week starts tomorrow and I am going to try and get more done on the website, but I am also still working on trying to get my corrections and changes done for the IRB committee so that I can start collecting my data for my Thesis so I may be slow on the posting this week.

I would love to hear any comments or suggestions that people have about the array of things I am working on during the AEDM 2011. I am excited to continue on and see what others are doing in their blog posts.

Much Love and Blessings,
D.


 


2 comments:

  1. Cheryl L Johnson: I love the way that certain symbols come up in our art and the way that these symbols can speak to us if we let them. It is kind of amazing how certain symbols seem to come up more for some than others. What symbols come up in your own work?

    ReplyDelete